The enduring appeal of the Back to the Future trilogy is due to one inescapable fact: the scripts – by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis on Part I, and Gale alone on parts II and III – are some of the best screenplays ever written. Forget that these aren’t movies that explore in depth the meaning of life, or what it is to be human, or any other deep, meaningful topics. Remember instead that these movies, taken together, constitute one of the most enjoyable, most rewarding movie trilogies this side of the Toy Story series (and if you ignore animation altogether, then they win hands down – sorry anyone waving the Star Wars Original Trilogy at me; I have just one word for you: Ewoks).

Jason Aron’s likeable, though fumbled, documentary looks at the story behind the making of the first movie, and then widens its scope to look at how it’s affected the lives of some of its fans, people like Stephen Clark, who became the Executive Director of Backtothefuture.com, the one-stop shop for anyone looking for information or merchandise relating to the series. Or Terry and Oliver Holler, who bought a DeLorean as a Bucket List idea when Oliver was diagnosed with cancer; now they travel around the US in their BttF-style DeLorean raising money for Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s charity. Or Greg and Jill Henderson, who through their company Arx Pax, have created a working hoverboard.

While these stories are interesting in and of themselves, and the people recounting them are engaging and refreshingly down-to-earth about their love for the movies and the work they do as a result of that love, it all comes at the expense of the movies themselves. If you’re a fan of Parts II and III, then this is not the movie for you if you’re looking for insights into the making of those movies, or any anecdotes relating to them. Part II gets a brief look, while Part III is practically ignored. The focus is squarely on Part I as the launching point for all the fan activity that followed in its wake.

So this leaves the movie feeling, initially, like it’s going to be about the making of all three movies. But it keeps veering away, jumping from personal recollections to detailed analyses of how several DeLoreans were transformed (by several different people) into copies of the cars used in the movies. There’s feedback from other entertainers/writers/directors, such as Dan Harmon, who created Community, and Adam F. Goldberg, the creator of The Goldbergs. And there are glimpses of conventions and public events, including the Secret Cinema presentation of Back to the Future from 2014. The movie covers a lot of ground, but in doing so, misses out on quite a lot also.

Part of the issue is, as mentioned above, the way in which Back in Time‘s structure reduces the amount of time we have to find out about one of the most respected and well-regarded cultural icons of the last thirty years. There are some great anecdotes about the making of the first movie, including Disney’s reaction to the script, and Gale is a great guide for the viewer, but without the contributions of Fox, Lloyd and Thompson in particular, this would be a rather dry examination of a wonderful movie (Zemeckis looks uncomfortable throughout, as if looking back on such a long-ago project detracts from the work he’s doing today).

There’s a flatness about the movie as well, a quality that makes it difficult for the viewer to become completely engaged with it. Whole stretches pass by in such a plain, matter-of-fact way that anyone watching from the comfort of their armchair might be inclined to skip ahead to the next section and see if it’s any more interesting. Aron also keeps the shooting style pretty plain and simple, and the static talking head approach is rarely abandoned for anything different.

As for the cast and crew of Back to the Future, the absence of Thomas F. Wilson (any Tannen you care to mention), and Crispin Glover (George McFly in Part I) is disappointing even though it’s expected. Aside from voicing his characters on various video games over the years, Wilson hasn’t milked his association with the series in the way that, say, Wells and Fullilove have (just watch the movie to find out how), but it would have been interesting to hear what he recalls about making the movies*. Glover, of course, shot himself in the foot when negotiating his contract for Parts II and III, but again, his contribution to such a terrific movie would be great to hear about. (The same goes for Eric Stoltz, but that’s probably not going to happen either.)

With the movie not quite working at the level it needs to, and even though there are some priceless moments – Fox referring to Princess Diana as “smokin’ hot”; Greg Henderson saying if he could time travel he’d like to go back and “bitch slap” a couple of people – it’s perhaps fitting to end this review with an absolutely brilliant quote from Dan Harmon: “We actually use the same logic when we go to see movies as we do walking into a casino. We largely know we’re gonna get ripped off, but the chance is worth it. If it were any other industry, we would have long ago shut it down and sued everybody. Because if it was cans of tuna, the equivalent would be like every third can had a human finger in it. Movies are so bad now.” And amen to that.

Rating: 6/10 – imperfectly assembled and with too many distractions from the “main feature”, Back in Time is only occasionally successful in doing justice to the movie series it has such high regard for; a once only viewing experience that will only have viewers clamouring for more about the movies and not the fans – they should have been saved for another movie all their own.

*If you want to have some idea of how Thomas F. Wilson feels about his association with Back to the Future, check this out:

In 1985, in a small rural community in Kansas, a single mother and two of her daughters are all killed one night at their farmhouse; later, the surviving daughter, Libby (Jerins), tells the police her brother Ben (Sheridan) did it. After his arrest and during his trial, Ben offers no defence and he’s sent to prison for the rest of his life.

In 2015, the adult Libby (Theron) is down on her luck and counting on her minor celebrity status to keep her afloat. When she’s contacted by Lyle Wirth (Hoult) with the offer of $500 for a speaking engagement, she arranges to meet with him first. Lyle tells her he belongs to a group called The Kill Club, an organisation of volunteers who look into old unsolved murders, or cases where they believe an innocent person has been put in jail. She attends one of their meetings and finds that several members believe Ben didn’t commit the murders, and Libby finds herself challenged over her version of events that night. Angry at first, Libby agrees to help the group look into the case, and begins her own investigation alongside theirs.

Lyle convinces her to visit her brother, something she’s never done. Ben (Stoll) is happy to see her, but Libby’s resentment of him means the visit goes badly. Back in her hometown she tries to find her father, Runner (Bridgers), who abandoned them when she was much younger. She also looks into the possibility of Ben having been part of a Satanic cult at the time, and why a young girl named Krissi Cates is relevant to what happened. As she learns more and more, she discovers Ben had a girlfriend called Diondra (Moretz). With Lyle’s help, Libby begins to put all the pieces together, and finds that what she believed happened all those years ago is far more complicated than she could ever imagined – and the repercussions of those events are still being played out in the present.

Adapted from the novel by Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, Dark Places is a murder mystery where what appears to be a simple, unexplainable crime proves to be something a lot more complicated and strange, and with a bewildering set of coincidences that make up the solution to the murders. Paquet-Brenner’s adaptation keeps the narrative skipping backwards and forwards between 1985 and 2015, showing us the events that led to the murders in 1985, and linking these scenes to the discoveries Libby makes in the present. As the story gradually unfolds, and we see the drama that played out in the past, we gain a greater understanding of the whys and hows that govern the actions of Libby and those people who were involved.

It’s a delicate balancing act at times, with the structure dictating that there be some degree of repetition throughout, as what we see in the past is explained in the future. Thankfully, Paquet-Brenner avoids such a hazard by making each new discovery as confusing as the last, and by throwing in so many suspects it almost seems as if the entire community could have done it. As Libby’s investigation leads to some unsavoury truths and revelations, the director makes it clear that her memories of that night have always been tainted, but to what degree she and the audience have to find out for themselves.

The dark places of the title are the ones we go to in our minds when we contemplate issues of murder and perceived guilt. The movie explores these avenues via the adult Libby’s increasingly fractured certainty that Ben killed his mother and sisters. And while the script plants a very big clue early on as to what really happened, it’s more concerned with the various ways in which we, through Libby, justify our actions and sense of culpability. Libby is tormented by having not been able to do anything to stop Ben, but as his innocence becomes more and more likely, her own assertions (the ones that have carried her through all these years) begin to crumble and she’s faced with the daunting prospect that her testimony condemned her brother to prison for the rest of his life.

But it proves not to be so simple. Ben has his own reasons for staying quiet, and so we, like Libby, have to seek answers in those dark places mentioned already. Thanks to a tight, focused script, and a clutch of telling performances, the movie shifts and turns with every passing minute, making it more and more difficult to work out what actually happened. Theron is impressive as the outwardly angry but internally uncomfortable Libby, her strained features and abrasive attitude in keeping with a survivor who only has her celebrity to keep her going; without it she’d be aimless (another reason why she agrees to help the Kill Club). As Lyle, Hoult brings a determined optimism to the role that offsets and complements Libby’s antagonistic approach, while Hendricks stands out as the harried mother struggling to keep her home and family together in the face of impending financial ruin. With more than able support from the likes of Sheridan, Moretz and de Matteo as the older Krissi, Dark Places succeeds in making each character credible, even when they’re sometimes asked to behave in ways that don’t make sense until the final reveal.

To add to the effectiveness of the script, the acting and Paquet-Brenner’s solid, unshowy direction, the movie is filmed in a gloomy, downlit style by DoP Barry Ackroyd, his compositions and framing illustrating proceedings with confidence and giving scenes an eerie quality that makes it seem that there’s other, stranger stuff we should know about happening just out of frame. With a running time that allows more than sufficient time to detailing events in both time periods, and a score by Gregory Tripi that subtly adds a level of foreboding to the material, Dark Places is an intelligent thriller that holds the attention and makes for avid viewing.

Rating: 8/10 – riveting in a sombre, calculated way, Dark Places maintains its gloomy, oppressive mise en scene to good effect throughout, and makes its audience work hard to solve the mystery; a better than average adaptation that showcases another fine performance from Theron, and flits between the past and the present with assured clarity and focus.

On vacation at the beachside resort of Ocean City with his parents (Hannah, Thompson) and sister (Seabrook), thirteen year old Rad Miracle (Conte) makes friends with fellow teen Teddy (Massey), attracts the attention of pretty but wayward Stacy (Shockley), and earns the enmity of older, arrogant bullies Lyle (McCaughtry) and Dale (Riddle). Rad has two hobbies: hip hop and ping pong. When Lyle challenges him to a game, Rad loses badly. Dejected, and with Lyle and Dale picking on him at every opportunity, Rad challenges Lyle to another game of ping pong. With the help of reclusive neighbour Randi (Sarandon), Rad learns how to improve his game in advance of the match, while also navigating the treacherous waters of his growing feelings for Stacy.

Set in 1985, and drenched in nostalgia, Tully’s love letter to the vacation spot he visited as a child is an often poignant examination of growing up and the pains that go with it. There’s nothing new here, but Ping Pong Summer deals well with the heartfelt experiences that teenagers have to go through, and despite a shaky start, goes on to become both enjoyable and emotionally engaging. Tully uses Super 16 film stock to help recreate the look of the times and there are enough references to 80’s culture to anchor the period effectively. It’s obviously a labour of love for the writer/director, and that shines through in the awkwardness of Rad’s relationships with Teddy and Stacy and the way in which Rad wanders the streets of Ocean City with barely disguised ennui.

This would probably be less interesting in other hands, and it’s thanks to Tully that the performances – despite being fairly low-key – are as accomplished as they are. Conte is a winning presence, amiable and as socially inept as you would expect while as Rad’s parents, Hannah and Thompson do well with their limited screen time, while Seabrook is memorable in a secondary role. Massey and Shockley are great as friend and possible girlfriend respectively, while the rest of the cast provide first-rate support. With a great contemporary soundtrack, Ping Pong Summer is a welcome addition to the coming of age genre.

Rating: 7/10 – Warm-hearted and sincere, Ping Pong Summer benefits from its clear affection for the characters and the time; a little too lightweight over all but able to generate enough good will to see it through.